


Scaredy-cat in the Vault

by SilverKidia



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 22:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11114202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverKidia/pseuds/SilverKidia
Summary: She comes from a Vault. I don't know anything about them. She can't believe they are so dirty. I say "Welcome to the Wastelands".





	Scaredy-cat in the Vault

**Author's Note:**

> This is an experimental work for me. Either this is an one-shot or a series. 
> 
> -insert YouTube intro- Feel free to comment, share, flame, suggest, like if you want to see more or not see ya.

She uses a sniper rifle. She says it reminds her of her daddy. I don’t ask more. She just sighs and keeps quiet. She likes to mention her daddy, but she doesn’t talk about him.

 

She's a shy person. She looks scared. She's young. I am also young, but she looks like a child. If she's looking for her daddy, she has to be a child. She says she's 19. She's... a teen. She’s younger than me. Not by much but… I’m the adult around.

 

She says she wants to explore all of the world. She says she can't believe that everywhere is like "this". We travel. She gets to believe it. I get to wonder how she couldn’t.

 

What she doesn't believe is the vaults. She knew there were more vaults in the world; if the one she came from was "101", there had to be... 102 or 100, right? Why pick a specific number if there weren't others?

 

She doesn't believe the vaults, because they are all a mess. The one she came from was closed, isolated, an exception to this world. She’s still living in that candy world. We don't find a single one that fits in that world. I'm the one who doesn't believe her. But I've never been to a vault, unlike her. For all I know, they are all raiders nests.

 

She says she can't believe it when she sees the blood splattered on the machines. To be honest, neither can I; there doesn't seem to be danger here... We only see skeletons, how come there's such a blood stain?

 

She screams. A dead body. Ah. I suppose so. We go on, but a question comes in mind; who killed that raider? We see mole rats, but... it can't be them.

 

She's scared. Scaredy-cat. She crouches, she barely wants to move. I can hear her heart pound. She's about to cry, isn't she? There's only mole rats. I finish them in one hit with my knife. There. No reason to be scared. Let's go on.

 

We see another dead body. He has a jumpsuit numbered 108. I bet she's gonna ask me where's 102 to 107. But no, she doesn't; she just stares at the body grimly. “The people I killed at home...”  She killed people? Well, yeah, she did, but raiders never count in this world. “It was self-defense, wasn't it?” she mutters. She seems to regret. She's shaking. Better take the head before she screams again at the mere dust. I suppose killing people you grew up with, as a kid, is a... how do they call it? I only feel hate from my childhood. A rage. She's too empathic. But I suppose that empathy did save me... _Liberate_ me from that rage against Ahzrukhal.

 

I look back. She slices meat from the rats. I shrug. I find InstaMash instead. Oh well. We keep on, we go through a door straight ahead, ignoring the previous one. I find amno. “Why is everything so dirty...?” She looks a little disgusted, but mostly heartbroken. “Lack of upkeep does that.” She shivers. I shrug. We go downstairs, and I stop her. “What's wrong,” she barely whispers, and I feel her fear. “There may be danger here.” As soon as I say that, the door in front of us opens, and a vault resident attacks us. He rushes toward me. I opted for my gun, but I swiftly switch to my knife, stabbing his throat. He's dead. He doesn’t even gasp or react to his death other than fall back.

 

She trembles. She doesn't dare talk. She must be thinking why I killed him. The answer is obvious. She's in denial. Oh well...

 

“People are living here...” she whimpers. I don't respond. A storage area. Beds. Chairs overthrown? Papers everywhere. Books damaged. People are living here... but they might as well be ferals. Even we ghouls have standards about our Underworld. This looks just as if they bombed this place. I can understand her fear. We’re not safe here. She enters a room and hides behind the window. I check the room, but there's nothing interesting to loot.  “There's more people,” she whispers. I turn around; indeed, I see someone through the window. I crouch too, sneaking in the doorway. These people don't talk. I hear them walk around randomly. Something is wrong with them. They will attack us. Oh well, no other choice but to kill them before we’re dead. I ready my gun.

 

I sneak into a room, and I hear one of them say “Gary”. I shoot them, but I miss my shot; I only hit them in the shoulder. They turn around, looking upset, and take a pistol. The weak stuff. It's barely gonna hurt me, especially if they have a poor aim. They start yelling “Gary, Gary”, and I duck below the table. A single, loud shot stops the man in his tracks and he drops dead. She sniped him. Oh well, at least she understands they have to die before we do now.

 

I now realize he looked like the previous one.

 

She doesn't say anything, she just follows me, a grim look on her face, like if she resigned herself to kill these people. Good. Empathy does no good. Even if she did save me from Ahzrukhal. He's always been the exception.

 

She finds computers and tries to work with them, I find more “Garys”. One of them surprises me; he laughs while he runs toward me, jokingly saying “Gary”, as if he was mocking me. I can't even process this. What the actual fuck?

 

She can't work the computers; they are too damaged. She passes solemnly next to the bodies, before gasping at the last one; she realizes they all look the same. I'm more shocked about finding a wastelander here. The door of the vault _was_ open, but still... That wastelander is on a surgical table, these “Garys” were trying to do something with him. I somehow thought they were just like ferals.

 

Guess I was mistaken.

 

“Charon?” she asks meekly. I don't respond, but I do slightly move my head over my shoulder. “That blo...” She doesn't finish her sentence. She looks hurt. Ah. That blood stain. The “Garys”? Possibly.

 

“I'm scared,” she says. “Yeah I know,” I reply. She pouts. I smile a little.

 

She suddenly screams. I jump to her just in time to parry the blow of a lead pipe from a “Gary”, pulling her behind me. Sneaky bastard! She shivers, then her attention is immediately caught by two trash bins and a shopping basket. “Those are from the outside!” Hum. I suppose they took it from the city to the north. Still, weird. She opens a door; the room is filled with tables and lockers. Looks like people tried to escape from the “Garys”, but I doubt we will see them. They must be skeletons by now. It's like that everywhere in the Wasteland.

 

We move to a new area. She cracks open a safe while I check around. Upstairs, I find more of these “Garys”. They haven't seen me yet. Good.

 

I throw in a grenade. The blast kills one, scares the others. I shoot them all. After they are all dead, she shows up, crouching. She stays in a corner, her rifle ready. I raise the muscles of an eyebrow, and she shoots someone upstairs. She's a good sniper. I wish she was better at closer ranges.

 

We pause. We hear them yell “Gary”. I grumble. I'm used to it already. She finds another wastelander's body, so she doesn't agree. I hear them ask “Gary?”, as if they knew we were here. They probably do. Unless they are looking for the other “Garys”. Who fucking knows.

 

I let her stroll into what seems to be the cantina, or cafeteria, whatever, and I go upstairs to kill more “Garys”. I go backstairs, and I don't find her.

 

I panic. A fucking radroach crawls up to me and I smash its head with the heel of my boot. Where is she? Where could she have gone? I go back upstairs, I go back downstairs. She's nowhere. I look everywhere, she's not there.

 

The Vault is now empty. Even she's nowhere to be found. But she wouldn't leave this place without me, I know it. She doesn’t have the guts to leave this place alone. She’s got too much empathy. I know that’s the only reason why she bought me. I look in the entrance, but I don't find her. Where is she? I go back to where all the computers were at. I pass over all the dead bodies I killed earlier, and I somehow feel like checking back. I see a room I didn't notice before. She did. I see the light of her Pip-Boy. 

 

I walk into the room. I see her playing with a bobblehead. She has fun at first, but I see she feels nostalgia. Slowly, her smile faints into a pained face. I close in, she doesn't react.

 

“We should go.”

 

She doesn't react. I take the bobblehead. She doesn't react. I leave the room. She doesn't react.

 

I stroll back, I look at all the rooms around, while I let her take her time. So much trash. Weird. For a vault, that is. I see a skeleton that fell out of a table, and I realize there's a holotape. I pick it up, and I go back check on her. She left the room, but she looks extremely tired. I want to suggest that she sleeps on these beds, but I know she won't. I pass her the holotape I found, and she plays it.

 

Surprisingly, or at least to me, it doesn't play sound. She says it's a text log, and it's badly corrupted. She's good with computers, but she can barely manage to salvage it. She does her best, reads the little she could extract, then lowers her eyes, sad. I sigh, exasperated for once, and I take her arm to read the text.

 

I let her go.

 

“We should go.”

 

She nods slowly, and we head back into the Wastelands.

**Author's Note:**

> I took Vault 108 because that's where I was at when I wrote this ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
